It’s been eight years since I’ve told you, face to face, Happy Birthday. Today, on which would be your 75th birthday, I’m sending yet another wish to you via air mail. I will continue sending you these air mail messages until I can talk to you again face to face. This will hopefully be many years from now as I have the responsibility you had in raising me. I’m raising my daughter. I can only hope that I raise her as you raised me. An independent woman who knows what she wants out of life.

Mom at Thanksgiving 2006

It’s been more than eight years since I’ve seen and talked to you. I pick up the phone to call you before I remember that you can’t answer. I still have the voicemail you left me and when I really need to hear your voice, I listen to it. It’s a poor substitute, but, it will have to do. You were my confidant and my best friend. I told you everything and knew I could count on you to never repeat it. You had my back even when I didn’t know it. I can only hope my daughter knows, when she is older, that I’ve had her back this whole time.

Mom at a Carnival in the 70’s

It’s been eight years and now that I have a teen of my own, I wish dearly that I could talk to you and get your input. You raised four teens yourself, three of them girls. I know things weren’t perfect. Who can say that their family is perfect? If they do, as you’ve told me many times, it would be a lie. I can only hope that while the mistakes I’m making, and I know I’m making plenty, end up right, as they have with my siblings and I.

It’s been eight years since my daughter has seen her grandmother. I try to keep you alive in her memories, but, I know they are slipping away. I want her to remember the loving mother and grandmother that you were. I can only hope that she keeps some memory of the love you two had for each other. Your girls time out to breakfast or lunch after you took her to an appointment for me. The secrets you shared, as only grandma’s and granddaughters do.

Mom and Ash Thanksgiving 2006

It’s been eight years. You are still missed and loved by so many. So many of us who wish for that one last word from you. I can only hope that I leave the legacy of love that you left behind when it’s time for me to come and talk to you face to face. So, until that time, here is another wish in the air to you of Happy Birthday. I love you.

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